


threads

by aosc



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Glaive Week, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-03
Updated: 2017-12-06
Packaged: 2019-02-10 04:13:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12903789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aosc/pseuds/aosc
Summary: For we were nursed upon the self-same hill. Fed the same flock, by fountain, shade, and rill; together both, ere the high lawns appeared under the opening eyelids of the Morn.For hearth, and for home. 7 days of ‘Glaive-centric fic.





	1. day I: origins

**Author's Note:**

> summary from john milton’s _lycidas_. y’all, glaive week is upon us. how amazing is this challenge? go on tumblr and [join!](http://glaiveweek.tumblr.com)

* * *

  
Nyx remembers life before the invasion in memories that are more sensation than they are scenarios.

 

He remembers the hot, humid summers as just that: more than he remembers the stately, wired trees of the endless Galahd forests that grew ancient and twisted, and so narrowly onto each other that the canopy became nearly impenetrable overhead. He remembers the winters, mostly shrouded in rain, as wet. Wet and still. More than he remembers how the snaking of the upstream river would overflow, and make the banks interchangeable and the stepping stones from the left bank to the right bank obscured by the squalling water.

 

He remembers the steady stream of people coming, going. Just a nonsensical pattern of footsteps from everywhere and nowhere in the village: the echo of them inside of the Nostrus Grotto. The sloshing of them, bare, in the sink sand of the upper western riverbank after a bout of rain. The thumping of someone running on the hard, staked out pathway between residences. The refugees coming from distant regions, more and more of them annexed, with time, by the empire. Their steps tired. Hesitant.

 

He remembers ma as a ghostly touch and a deck of tarot cards. The pad of her index finger tracing his palm as she read his future in small dips and loping lines. The stillness in her wrists as she plaited the first of two braids around the curve of his ear. The reverence in her tone, as she’d stroked his cheek, and said, “There’s the old ways in you, Nyx.”

 

And then, viscerally, there’s his sister — his brave, elder sister. There is bloating smoke coiling from the fire. Acres of wet forest, somehow, set ablaze: the heavy cadence of soldiers marching up the steep, winding paths that lead into the village. The dull raps of ceaseless gunfire. His sister rounding a corner, shielding the Lyrion twins —

 

“ _Selena_!” he screams, the push and shove of his voice coming out strangled and desperate.

 

*

 

He wakes up by the roil of a heavy set vehicle beneath him. There’s a dull ache in his upper body that reverberates with each turn they make. At his side, something smells strong; like the gum trees that grow upstream from the main village, like they’re wet with sweet water and autumn.

 

“Nyx? You with us?”

 

Pelna’s voice is steady, but rough.

 

“Yeah,” murmurs Nyx in reply. He’s here, present, but —

 

Pelna’s back is curved into a pair of sand bags. To their left sits a slew of others: Hesperus is leaned into a tall rifle. Nyx doesn’t recognize it; most likely, it’s Niff-manufactured. Rena is, whenever they straighten out on the road, sharpening a pair of curved blades against a whetting stone. Libertus’s face is dark. He’s leaned the solid bulk of his forearms to steady on his knees. Curled half into his side is Crowe. The bridge of her nose is sooty. A thin gash stretches across her left collarbone.

 

“We’re heading upstream,” says Pelna, “The Niffs don’t know the land. Luring them out onto the marshes and below the largest trees, and we might just have a chance of getting to them.”

 

“Are there — “ starts Nyx, but swallows his words. He tries again, “Others made it out?”

 

“Yeah,” says Pelna, “A few from the east bank got started on the evacuation. It’s not just us — they came at all the villages, all at once.”

 

“Coordinated slaughter,” says Crowe. She swipes at her eyes, but Nyx can’t see where they’re wet.

 

A growl escapes Libertus, but he says nothing. Pelna glances his way, but doesn’t comment. Nyx eases his way up to sitting. There’s a torn wrap of someone’s shirt tied around his upper left arm. That’s where the ache originates from.

 

There is a feeling, needling, scraping, in his gut, that says that there is something so wrong — the thought comes, and then it goes. He’s not sure he can _think_ it.

 

“What happened,” he says, and then stops. He pulls a deep, deep breath. Someone’s — Pelna’s, warm, damp palm, lands on his shoulder. He knots his hands into fists, digs his nails into the vulnerable skin in his palms.

 

He tries to work past the knot in his throat, “What happened to all the families?” and carefully does not ask about — specifics.

 

“Niffs rounded everyone up they could get to like cattle,” says Rena. She meets Nyx’s gaze, fierce, angry. “They didn’t do anything, far as we know, to those who didn’t resist.”

 

And those who did — Rena won’t have to tell him. Nyx has enough trouble keeping the bile down, sour and heavy, as it is. He tugs a little on the makeshift bandage wrapping around his bicep. The pain flashes up bright for a second, then dulls again. It grounds him. Makes for a ledge that he can grip onto and haul himself halfway over. If he doesn’t have to think — then he won’t.

 

He looks up at Libertus, who won’t meet his gaze. At Rena, who has reverted her attention to her blades. The fashioned steel makes cold embers spark when she hits the whetting stone a little imprecisely. At her back, Hesperus has procured a filthy cloth. With it, he polishes down the length of his stolen rifle.

 

Nyx turns. Pelna watches him with an open expression. The only one who will. It’s opened up raw. Too vulnerable. It didn’t used to matter, Nyx thinks, but things change.

 

“We go to war,” he says.

 

Pelna nods, once.

 

“We go to war.”

 

*

 

They arrive at the perch of the upstream village, originally a part of their own, but which has ever since the flood of 698 forced the settlement further downriver. It’s now situated just atop a rock plateau that teaches the young to never meander close to the tear of the riverbank alone, the drop of a waterfall chillingly close and real.

 

The things they expect: ruin, and chaos. Screaming, from children, and from fathers, and mothers. From nieces and from uncles. Gunfire. Endless, ceaseless gunfire. Fear has burrowed its sharp claws into Nyx’s throat. It makes it difficult to talk, to breathe.

 

The things they do not expect: when they round the bend in the road that leads up to the village, the first thing that comes into view is a ground platoon of Niffs establishing a perimeter blockade around the village. There is an entire slew of them just standing riverside, erect and motionless the way humans could never do. This is charged; robotic. It’s alien.

 

Tredd makes a sharp left, shifting the car into a low thrumming first gear to avoid detection. There’s a rock plateau a few feet removed, into the tree line. He eases the car into stop just beneath it, where they’re mostly concealed from view, unless someone comes down the hill to actively search them out.

 

They cover the Humvee with brambles and banana leaves elongating from broken stems. Rena and Crowe secure their perimeter. Tredd and Hesperus are hauling the sand bags out of the back of the car. Luche leans over Libertus’s shoulder, motioning for them to gather ‘round.

 

“This can’t be an ambush,” he says, once everyone has gathered tightly, arms woven between them. “The one thing the Niffs don’t have on us is the geography. You all know the lay of these lands,” he looks each of them over, “So use it to your advantage.”

 

Nyx feels Crowe’s hair brush his left elbow, scored with blood and singed. On his other side, Pelna leans heavily into his upper arm. It puts pressure on the wound across his bicep, but Pelna is warm, and it dulls the throbbing somewhat, leeching through the cloth.

 

“No matter what happens, we don’t stop till justice has been dealt.”

 

Libertus looks up at Nyx from across the circle. His eyes are red rimmed, his face streaked with smoke and mud. Nyx nods at him.

 

Libertus returns it. When he talks, his voice comes out scratchy and raw, “We go to war.”

 

Nyx quells a shiver. The bile in his throat, omnipresent, is receding. Slowly it’s becoming replaced by anger. By something that rears, on hind legs, desperate to be unleashed. He looks around, from Tredd’s closed off expression, to Crowe’s shoulders, barely still, to the sharp twist of Pelna’s mouth.

 

“We go to war,” they echo, simultaneously. A promise of deliverance, of fire for fire.

 

*


	2. day II: birthdays

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _She doesn’t know when she’s born. Everything is an estimate, about her. The measure of her strength, how much she can bottle up before she releases it. Her anger, tempering it until it simmers just beneath the surface. The fire, mostly contained on the inside, but sometimes, feeling it out, sparking at her fingertips._
> 
> Of Crowe, birthdays, and family.

* * *

  
The memories she has of where she comes from are sparse. Dried up, as though they’ve lingered out in the sun, received neither nourishment nor care. When she tries to swallow down on what she remembers, her throat dries up, a desert whorl that crawls up from her chest and into her mouth.

 

She remembers the earliest platoons of Niff soldiers coming through the village. Human, not like they are now. They’re men, looming in their clunky armor and hamstringed by their reliance on big guns, but ultimately men — groomed for battle and for chaos.

 

They tear most of it apart, of course. She’s eight years old, or somewhere in the vicinity. She remembers running out of the village, steering for the harbor. Her barely-clad feet are burning, her shoes are torn by the rocky path underway, from scaling cliffs and heaving herself down muddy paths. There are long strips of seaweed clinging to her bare calves. Her hair stinks of when fire eats its rapid way into organic matter. It’s singed and torn. Her heart is beating out of her chest, heaving up in her mouth. Her vision is halfway black from exhaustion, but she can’t stop. Distantly, there are shouts at her back, there are thumping footsteps too clunky and too loud to be from someone of the village.

 

She skids to a halt just by the docks. It stinks of this morning’s net having been pulled ashore; of fish rotting in the expose of the sun. She looks back: sees three soldiers rounding the final corner out from the main street. She looks forward. There’s a small rowboat tied orderly at the forefront of the closest pier. She throws herself forward again. Her breath ricochets back up at jackrabbit pace. The soles of her feet get more splinters as she runs, the rickety wood tearing through the thin leather. It doesn’t matter. She has to get to the end of the pier.

 

The boat is tied securely in place by a frayed strip of rope. She drops to her knees in motion, feels how she thunks down too harshly into the sagging tree of the dock below. She fumbles with the rope. The coil of the knot is tight, has dug deep indents where time and weather and wind has worn it down in place. She tries to remember how one unlaces a linesman’s loop, but comes up blank. Her mind is white. Only her breath echoes through the space that otherwise is occupied by her thoughts.

 

The steps at her back are getting closer. The shouts intensify. She doesn’t understand what they’re saying, but she recognizes a leer, a threat, a promise of hurt, when she hears it.

 

One of her nails tear at the rope. She draws back, swearing. It hangs broken, barely tethered to one end. The knot hasn’t given an inch. The steps come closer. They’re on the pier now. The wood beneath her reverberates and whines. She throws herself back down onto the knot, tugging at one frayed end that peeks up. Nothing gives.

 

She remembers that this is not the first moment that she has found herself in distress, and in wild panic, has called out for any help she can get. Not as a physical shout, but as something within herself. Willing her legs to carry her a bit farther, or for her lungs to expand more. For her fingers to obey her, for the knot to just _give_ —

 

An ember sparks at her fingertips. It’s so sudden that she has no way of controlling her corresponding motions. Her fingertips remain at the rope, knotted in the frayed end, as the shower of embers turns into a spark, large and dry enough to erupt. It’s instantaneous; the closed loop she holds is incinerated in a lick of fire. She burns her index and middle finger before she is able to recoil. The knot, now broken, slides from the metal eyelet, dropping into the roil of the sea below. She rises from her knees and jumps into the boat. It rocks upon impact, but remains as she drops down in its cradle and grips both oars at half mast.

 

She doesn’t look back. She’ll never look back.

 

*

 

She crawls from the boat. The sand beneath it is muddy and dark. The sky overhead is a cast iron grey, ruddy with the promise of rain. It’s warmer here, the air thick with humidity. The blisters in her palms have opened again, and she has a splinter wedged in the gap between her thumb and index finger. She’s nauseous from the lack of food and water over the course of several days.

 

But, Crowe thinks, stars bursting at the edges of her vision, as she pushes the rowboat, salt stained and creaking, over the riverbank:

 

She is alive.

 

“Who’re you?”

 

She hasn’t noticed anyone getting in close. She spins around, biting her lip until it splits, reopening where it’s managed to close up over the day.

 

The boy — it’s a boy who’s come close, with hulking shoulders and long braids in his hair — stares at her intently from where he looms above her. Crowe squints up at him. His accent is slightly oval in her ears, layering over his words in a way she’s unfamiliar with. She doesn’t reply.

 

“Hey, Lib, what’s — “ Another boy comes up at the first’s shoulder. He quiets as soon as he spots her. Crowe moves her stare. She tries to gather her weight and her legs beneath her, ready to jump out of the coil her body has curled into.

 

“Asked you a question,” the first boy says.

 

Crowe glares at him.

 

The boy scrapes his toe in the mud. He knots his arms across his chest. “You uh, come a long way? You look tired.”

 

“Lib — “ the other boy attempts. The first hushes him. He stubbornly maintains eye contact with her.

 

Crowe feels her body in a way that she’s attempted to dissuade herself from feeling it: the blisters and splinters burrowed in her palms, the scratches on her knees, and the welts across her collar. The tightness in her stomach, strung out and lean from lack of food. Her raw cheeks. Her homelessness. The lack of someplace to return.

 

“Who’re you?” she counters, sticking her chin out.

 

The boy hesitates. The look that crosses his face is surprised. Then he slowly cracks into smiling, lips tugging wide. “I’m Libertus,” he hefts a thumb over his shoulder, “This’s Nyx. Now, kid, I gave you information. I expect some in return.”

 

Crowe scowls. She gets to her feet slowly, hesitantly feeling out where her strengths remain. “I’m not some kid,” she says, pulling to her full height. “I’m Crowe.”

 

Libertus tilts his head. “Yeah?” he replies. He pauses, and then says, considering, “‘S nice to meet you. I guess. Village is that way. You wanna come with?”

 

*

 

She doesn’t know when she’s born. Everything is an estimate, about her. The measure of her strength, how much she can bottle up before she releases it. Her anger, tempering it until it simmers just beneath the surface. The fire, mostly contained on the inside, but sometimes, feeling it out, sparking at her fingertips.

 

She comes to the lower Galahdian tribe at eight, an age which is circumstantial, at best. She is neither too young, nor too old. When she looks back at where she’s been and where she’s come from, eight feels — right, in her mouth.

 

“You can’t not know,” says Libertus, his eyes pinched in suspicion. He’s slowly sucking oatmeal from his spoon, chin in hand, while he’s contemplating how apparently weird it is that Crowe doesn’t know the specifics about her date of birth.

 

Crowe grimaces at him in distaste. “Come on, Lib, that’s disgusting.”

 

Libertus waves at her. “Like you’re such a perfect _princess_.” He puts emphasis on the final word, scowling all the while. “Anyway. You hafta know, Crowe.”

 

She swipes up the remains of her own breakfast. “Why is it such a big deal?”

 

Libertus drops his spoon. “Because it is.”

 

Crowe raises an eyebrow.

 

“Come on,” Libertus needles.

 

“If it matters to you so much, why don’t you just make one up for me?”

 

Libertus seems almost affronted at the suggestion. “I can’t just make up your birthday.”

 

Crowe smirks. “Is it because you have zero imagination?”

 

“Shut up,” Libertus grouses, “That’s not it. It’s just ‘cause — “ he purses his lips, “It’s cause you can’t. You can’t just make up what day you were born.”

 

“What can’t you make up?”

 

Crowe twists in her chair. She rolls her eyes. “ _Fi_ nally,” she says. She gives Nyx a reprimanding, if half hearted, glare, “Talk to him about stupid stuff, please.”

 

Nyx raises an eyebrow. “Stupid stuff?”

 

“Stuff like who’s the unprecedented free fishing champion. Or who can stay the longest underwater without coming up for air.”

 

“That’s not stupid, that’s serious,” Libertus interjects.

 

Nyx snorts out a laugh. Crowe smirks, and mouths, _my point_. Nyx pretends as if he doesn’t see it, to keep Libertus out of the conversation.

 

“Crowe doesn’t want to tell me when her birthday is.”

 

Nyx slumps down onto the only empty chair. “It’s because she doesn’t want to embarrass you by telling you how much older you are than her in years, since she’s a lot more mature.”

 

Libertus twists his hands into a series of rude gestures in Nyx’s direction.

 

“I’m not _not_ telling him,” Crowe says, “I don’t know, okay?”

 

Nyx shrugs. “Okay,” he says.

 

Libertus turns in his chair. “What do you mean ‘okay’?”

 

Nyx tilts his head. “Why’s it such a big deal, Lib?”

 

Libertus’s face is suddenly somber, his mouth pursed thinly. He pushes his bowl aside, crossing his arms on the table. “Because we’re family,” he says, quietly but intensely. He looks back up at Crowe, “So we should celebrate that. Every year.”

 

Crowe — frowns, even as the pit of her stomach twists, churning into something that’s somewhat warm. She looks at Libertus until she realizes that he’s not going to look away, but keep staring at her until she gives.

 

So she gives. She looks down into the scuffed tabletop, feeling color blotch out over the bridge of her nose.

 

“Well,” says Nyx, “If you don’t know, you don’t know. We’ll pick a date. All of us.” He looks at Crowe. “That’s okay?”

 

She nods, ducking her face again and scrubbing at her cheeks, which are going annoyingly warm.

 

“You came here in April, right? At the start, I think. It was getting hot. So around then. What numbers do you like?”

 

“I don’t know,” says Crowe, “eight?” She picks a number that settles in her mouth, the first she unthinkingly recalls.

 

Nyx leans into his chair. “There you have it,” he says, “April eighth.” He turns to Libertus, “You happy?”

 

Libertus doesn’t look convinced. He looks at Crowe. “April eighth?” he asks.

 

She shrugs. Any day is fine with her, or no day. It’s not important to her, but —

 

“I guess it’s okay,” Libertus says.

 

Crowe snorts. She fights to keep the smile off her face, but doesn’t manage completely.

 

*


	3. day III: family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“What was that I heard?” says Nyx, “Oh, ‘thanks for saving my ass again, Nyx, that’s 16 — 0 to you. Let me pay for drinks tonight._ Again _.’”_
> 
> Of heroes and their families.

* * *

  
Nyx sinks down onto the seat in the back of the Humvee. He sighs, feels the coil of adrenaline in his throat loosen, shivers run through his knees, the not quite-calm pulse on his wrists. Post battle-jitters, every damn time. He curls into the corner as to make room for Pelna and Libertus, who come jogging after him. Assessing the damage: he’s got a badly sprained wrist, and a couple of bruised ribs, at the very least — which is decidedly going to be a bitch. But later.

 

Pelna knocks his fist into Nyx’s shoulder. “ _You_ ,” he says, pointedly, “Are going to get so much shit from the Captain.”

 

Libertus, on Pelna’s other side, snorts, ”Don’t try and talk sense into him, Pelna. _Heroes_ don’t listen to sense. Just to fanfares, and crowds screaming their names.”

 

“What was that I heard?” says Nyx, “Oh, ‘thanks for saving my ass again, Nyx, that’s 16 — 0 to you. Let me pay for drinks tonight. Again.’”

 

Libertus flips him off above Pelna’s head. Pelna snorts. He catches Nyx’s gaze again. “I’m serious, you know. It’s gonna be border patrol for this hero. Or maybe sewer watch. Whatever brings you the most shit.”

 

“That’s border patrol, then,” says Crowe, who’s shuffling in after Luche and Tredd, “You know how much they enjoy our company out there.”

 

Luche regards Nyx unimpressed. “You know, Nyx, one of those maneuvers is going to see you smashed against the closest rock face some day.”

 

Nyx shrugs. His wrist is aching, various ailings and sores coming to him through the haze of nerves and epinephrine, draining slowly out of him like poison. He props himself more securely into the corner. “Really glad you enjoyed gaining the advantage just as it was going down the drain, guys. Let’s hear the gratitude one more time.”

 

“Going down the drain — “ Luche scoffs.

 

“Shifting the momentum at the southern bridge, as it were, wouldn’t have put us in any position to advance on the — “ begins Sonitus.

 

“Okay, no,” interjects Pelna, “Credit where credit’s due. The bridge would’ve been a goner.”

 

Sonitus scowls. “The southern bridge wasn’t ever vital to ensure the success of the mission as it were.”

 

“Bull _shit_ ,” says Crowe. She crosses her ankles and stretches in her seat, cracking her neck. “Just because Nyx likes making everything into a pissing contest around here doesn’t mean you get to diminish the importance of keeping every outpost within our parameter secure.”

 

“While true, it would’ve made no difference to let it go. The surrounding terrain makes it just as difficult to maintain as it does for an enemy force to conquer it.”

 

“Look,” says Libertus, “This’s all — literally — water under the bridge, right?”

 

“It’s the principle of things,” says Sonitus, stiffly.

 

“And the principle of things will hand Nyx’s ass to him very soon,” says Tredd.

 

Steps rattle outside of the truck. They’re followed momentarily by a loud bang. Someone’s just put their fist none too gently to the Humvee’s right side.

 

“ _Ulric_ — is _Ulric_ accounted for?” comes from outside.

 

It doesn’t sound terribly impressed.

 

“Don’t come crying to me after,” mutters Libertus. If Nyx were to listen closely, he’s sure he’d be able to detect at least a hint of glee in his tone of voice.

 

“Libertus,” replies Nyx, just a tad terse, “Shut up.”

 

Captain Drautos’s shadow towers into view before the man himself shows. In the gloomy twilight shade, he seems more imposing than normally. He rounds the Humvee and crouches before the back doors, at half mast, as to be able to peek into its belly. His gaze immediately zooms in on Nyx.

 

The captain glowers.

 

“You,” he rumbles, “Are to await reassignment in my office as soon as we make base.”

 

Nyx, to his own credit, he thinks, doesn’t as much as blink. “Yessir,” he affirms.

 

Captain Drautos pulls on the momentum a little more, glare boring balefully into Nyx. Then he shakes his head. He straightens. “Homebound, ‘Glaives,” he says gruffly.

 

“Sir,” they chorus.

 

The Captain shuts the doors. The car rumbles to life.

 

“Congrats on yet another round of border patrol, hero,” says Crowe, cheerfully.

 

*


	4. day IV: bar fights

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“You mean, except for the obvious part, which is being on the road,” says Libertus. He stares at Pelna, who has opened his mouth, “Not everyone is as in tune with the trees and the creeks as Ramuh incarnate over here. Some of us get back pains._ Serious back pains _.”_

* * *

  
“First couple days of deployment are always the shittiest.”

 

Nyx looks across the embers of the sputtering fire, cocking his head at Libertus. “Yeah?”

 

“And why’s that?” asks Pelna, cutting in. He’s stretched out next to Nyx, balancing his weight on his forearms and flat calves. He swigs the pocket flask, before passing it over to Tredd. “Fresh air, clear skies. Get away from eating gymnasium mat for a couple weeks. I’m pretty okay with it.”

 

“’Eating gymnasium mat’ he says,” mutters Libertus darkly, “You spec ops guys have _no_ say in this. When’s the last time you stepped foot outside the shooting range, Pelna?”

 

Crowe rolls her eyes. She snatches the flask from Axis. “Are you sore, Lib?”

 

“In what way?” says Luche.

 

Libertus scowls. “You’re hilarious, Lazarus.”

 

“You can take some credit for that yourself,” Luche promises. He accepts the flask from Crowe. “The government is paying you to let them grind your face into a gymnasium mat every so often. It’s self afflicted, so you can’t whine about it.”

 

“Oh,” says Crowe, “Good to know you’re no longer bitch-eligible, Luche.”

 

Pelna snorts. He hands the flask back to Nyx, wiping at his lower lip with the back of his hand. Nyx accepts it. “Didn’t realize we’re actually away on a field trip with a class of kindergartners,” he says.

 

“Screw you, Nyx,” says Tredd good naturedly.

 

“Mature,” Pelna says through an ill-acted cough. Libertus smirks.

 

“Back to the original questionnaire,” says Crowe. She twists until she’s able to face Libertus. “What’s got you bitching about being on the road?”

 

“You mean, except for the obvious part, which is being on the road,” says Libertus. He stares at Pelna, who has opened his mouth, “Not everyone is as in tune with the trees and the creeks as Ramuh incarnate over here. Some of us get _back pains_. Serious back pains.”

 

“Tell us more about your memory foam bed with Altissian cotton bedspreads, Libertus,” says Crowe, “That you can absolutely afford with your salary.”

 

“There’s a whole lot that’s making sense here,” says Nyx. He smirks at Libertus, “Now I understand what’s your selling point when you’re picking someone up.”

 

“ _Nyx_ ,” Libertus snaps, “I’ll come after you. Don’t think I won’t.”

 

“I’d like to see you warp after that flask’s empty, buddy.”

 

“I’ll show you who’s going to warp — “

 

“Right, gentlemen, I think that’s enough.” Crowe smiles at them both in turn, her lips twisted sharp. “Don’t you?”

 

Libertus rocks down on his heels again. He crouches, and sits down slowly. He glowers at Nyx, and wags a threatening finger.

 

“So, you all really think spec ops get a free pass out of hand-to-hand?” says Pelna, breaking a spell of silence. He squints at the group.

 

“There’s no thinking about it involved,” says Crowe, “It’s empirically proven.”

 

Libertus nods. “Freeloaders,” he says, empathetically.

 

“What? What do you mean empirically proven — “

 

“Fucking statistically, man,” Tredd cuts in. He waves the flask in front of himself. “Anyone up? Freeloader?” He screws the cork on, and throws it at Pelna. “Have some hard earned liquor, my man.”

 

“Libertus got his face ground in for that swig of booze,” says Crowe. She taps Pelna’s boot with the toe of her own, “You better be grateful.”

 

“I’ll grind _your_ face in,” mutters Libertus.

 

“Nyx is the only proven masochist here,” says Luche, “You should try your luck somewhere proven.”

 

“Oh, ha,” says Pelna. “That’s genuinely funny.”

 

“Glad you’re having fun, guys,” says Nyx, “It’s only at the expense of me. Whatever.”

 

“Right?” replies Pelna, “Got to love the first days of deployment, huh, Lib?”

 

“Wow,” says Libertus, “Collectively, and individually, you’re the shittiest group of people to ever have graced this earth with their presence. Congratulations.”

 

Tredd looks around the circle. “Are we going to drink to that, or what?”

 

*

**Author's Note:**

> i'm on [tumblr](http://ddelline.tumblr.com). come and yell at and/or with me about kingsglaive, ffxv in general, or anything else you might come to think of that needs to be yelled about.


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